I am bothered by an almost total lack of multihull sailing by late teens on the west coast. The multihull youth world championship is to be held in San Diego in two years time. What can we do to jump start a few of our junior sailors at Southern California's Yacht Clubs?

I borrowed a Hobie Wave for the 4th of July weekend and there was a great deal of interest by the early teen members. How do you think we can move this from a fun weekend diversion from Sabots and FJ's, to an interest in sailing/racing Hobies?

To do my part, I plan to buy a Wave and encourage my niece to sail it not only on the weekends, but also as a regular part of her junior sailing program. Once kids experience cats, there is no strong desire to sail Sabots. I think this is what the YC is afraid of. I hope that by the time my sons are old enough to sail in the summer program that there is a small but active wave fleet sailing at MBYC. I have three to four years to start this up.

All good points, and a common problem, how to get youth racing Hobies. Locally, Peter Nelson and Laura Sullivan have been active in their Hobie 101 and 102 classes. You may have seen some items posted on their efforts, here and other forums, including US SAILING Multihull forums.

Here in Seattle, we have Sail Sand Point, Seattle's Community Sailing Center. In addition to the Optis, Hunter 140's, FJs, 420's and Lasers, we have five Hobie Waves. The Waves were all donated, starting with the local Hobie Sailors, followed by other interested groups and individuals.

See www.sailsandpoint.org. The Waves are used in Sail Camps, Open Sailing, and local Fast and Fun Events. At our first Hobie Regatta, we also had a separate start and race for our Waves, all sailed by youth sailors.

We are now working with our local Fleet 95, and Division 4 sailors to expand this program to include Hobie 16's to train teams for the National Youth Multihull events.

In additon, we have several second generation Hobie Sailors that are crewing, and now taking the helm. In my family, my son took over the helm on our H-16, and later H-18 starting when he was 15. More parents need to take this approach.

We are now in our third generation of Hobie sailors, with my Grandson Daniel racing a Wave in his first race, which included his Father, Tom on his H-17, plus me on my H-17.

I grew up racing Aquacats, Prindles, and Hobies with other large and small boats thrown into the mix. The Aquacat fleet out of Newport Beach California would come down to San Diego every Memorial Day and Labor Day. The racing format was Mens, Womans, Juniors, Doubles, Open. Short races would allow two races each on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Small ribbons or plaques would be given at the end of the weekend for the first five in each class. There would be 20-25 boats so there were a lot of families, some with two boat and almost all were on the water every race. This is what I would like to see happen with the Wave.

By the way, this was all done off the beach with little marks set by the sailing them out and dropping them off. RC off the beach and no formal club or comitee in a chase boat.

On a bright note, I finally got several kids interested in sailing the Junior nationals in Ventura later this month. If one team from MBYC makes it, my earlyn efforts will be paying off sooner than I expected.

Any hot juniors from your club or other area clubs able to race in Ventura? There are some conflicting events, but not all the good sailing kids are able to compete as entries are limited. Can you scare up a few entries?

In regards to the 16 Youth event in Ventura:
I have been doing some scouting via internet and there are 12 teams entered as of 7-11-05. Of those there are some kick-a## sailors going head to head.

Ones that I have read some major accomplishments about are
Timm Wallace/JR Serroto dominated MWE 2004 and did well in '05
Darren Hoffman did well at MWE '04
Alexander/Jordon Wessels (my favorite picks!) scored well at MWE '04 and 16 Youths in Syracuse '04 and leading B fleet in Div 7
Andrew Robinson did well at Syracuse '04
Steve Hilk also did well at Syracuse '04
Jake Larson has been doing well in '05 against adults in B fleet
Jean-Luc Bonde won the youth multihull thing in BC to

I think its going to be an awesome race. Can't wait until next week to see this event unfold www.hca-na.org

Hobies Youth Rep is amazing, you should contact her to get ideas on how to encourage more youth multihull sailing (vs. scows, opti/sabot, and the rest)

I am concerned about getting the youth out there sailing. I to would like to see them on catamarans. I have been busy trying to talk up catamaran sailing in my Yacht Club ABYC, to anyone who will listen. Adults as well as youth. There are a number of youth sailors interested and awed by the catamarans (I sail a Tiger). I have not be able to hook them up with a ride yet. I am too busy with other matters and cannot commit to making a concerted enough effort. I did introduce cat sailing to a couple of youths 12 year old and 15 year old (Eileens neice and nephew). We took my boat out, the three of us, in Long Beach. Blowing about 18 to 20. Had them trapping and flighing the chute. It was a hoot!

I think that it is obvious that the youth will not be starting on a Tiger. They will start at the Wave and Hobie 16 level, at least in the US. I like the program they have over in Europe where there are different sizes of high performance spinnaker boats. They gradually get on the bigger boats as they get comfortable with the smaller ones.

I am a bit slanted toward the higher performance catamarans. I think they are more likely to attract newer sailors because they are new and sexy late model designs. Kind of like new cars that are streamlined and have a lot of bells (speed) and whistles (looks).

Up in Northern CA there were a group of sailors along with the dealer that bought Hobie Dragoons. I think they bought three. Sounds like they are starting to get some youth teams to the events on those. They are such a fun boat to sail for the kids. They would compete with the 29er's I believe if we could get kids on them and racing. The catamaran also has the added benifit of not being as tippy especially in light wind conditions. That monohull class (29er) took off for a while but now not so many around. I do not know why.

I asked the youth sailing program manager at a couple of yacht clubs if they were interested in having a Dragoon or two in their program. The response what less than enthusiastic. First concern was where to store them. They do take up a bit more room than a sabot. And the real reason was that there were not many yacht clubs that run multihull classes. On this coast (West) there are more and more Formula 18 sailors that are becoming members of a yacht club but there are not many 16 sailors that are. Yacht Clubs can only support the boats that club members own...That makes sense. Unfortunatly for us, is that is where most of the sailing programs come from.

Any chance of a few of the talented kids from SDYC sailing in the Junior nationals this month? I know it is last minute, but adding a potential national championship to any of the kids resume may be draw enough to have a team or two jump in. I know several of the MBYC older juniors jumped to the SDYC or SWYC programs. Can you push the event with your youth director and ask them to push the event with the SWYC people?